Design of a Sub-Surface Radar for the Europa Jupiter System Mission

EJSM-SSR DIT-PRJ-10-055

Homepage http://rslab.disi.unitn.it/ssr/
Status NOT active project
DISI role Coordinator
Project type Research Project
Dimension International
Acquisition date 2010-05-01
Start date 2010-09-01
End date 2011-08-31
SAP code 40101808

Project details

Project astract The Europa Jupiter System Mission (EJSM) is a very large joint European Space Agency (ESA), NASA international mission for studying Jupiter and the related icy moons (i.e., Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto). The architecture of the mission includes two independent spacecrafts with different destinations: the Jupiter Europa Orbiter (JEO), provided by NASA and devoted to Jupiter and the Jovian moons Io and Europa, and the Jupiter Ganymede Orbiter (JGO), which represents the contribution of ESA and will investigate Jupiter and the Ganymede and Callisto moons. In this context different payloads have been defined for the two spacecrafts. Among them, a radar sounder instrument for subsurface analysis have been included on both spacecrafts.<br/>The goal of this project is to study the preliminary design of the Sub-Surface Radar instrument (SSR) defined for JGO. SSR will investigate the shallow sub-surface of the Jovian icy moons Ganymede and Callisto. The project addresses all the main issues related to design of the radar including: i) definition of the instrument concept; ii) architecture of the sub-surface radar; iii) physical resources and interface with the spacecraft; iv) radiation mitigation strategy; v) planetary protection issues; vi) study of the spectrum of the Jovian radio emission; vii) modeling of the Ganymede and Callisto sub-surfaces; viii) clutter modeling; ix) radar performances and tradeoff analysis; x) radar antenna; xi) model philosophy; xii) development plan; xiii) identification of the main technology development activity necessary for SSR. <br/>The Remote Sensing Laboratory at DISI leads the project team, which is composed by several Italian and international institutions.
Keywords radar sounder, ground penetrating radar, Europa Jupiter System Mission, Jupiter Ganymede Orbiter (JGO), Jupiter Europa Orbiter (JEO)
Fundings 120825 €
Partners
  • DISI - UniTN
  • Istituto nazionale di Astrofisica (Italy) - INAF/IFSI
  • Laboratoire de Planetologie de Grenoble CNRS/UJF (France);
  • Consorzio di Ricerca su Sistemi di Telesensori Avanzati (Italy)
  • Jet Propulsion Laboratori (JPL) NASA (USA)
  • Thales Alenia Space (Italy)
  • Universita di Perugia
  • INFOCOM Universia La Sapienza (Roma)
  • Universita di Pescara

DISI Sub-project details

Project astract The University of Trento is the coordinator of this project. It is responsible for all the activities listed above related to the design of the radar including: i) definition of the instrument concept; ii) architecture of the sub-surface radar; iii) physical resources and interface with the spacecraft; iv) radiation mitigation strategy; v) planetary protection issues; vi) study of the spectrum of the Jovian radio emission; vii) modeling of the Ganymede and Callisto sub-surfaces; viii) clutter modeling; ix) radar performances and tradeoff analysis; x) radar antenna; xi) model philosophy; xii) development plan; xiii) identification of the main technology development activity necessary for SSR.
Keywords radar design, clutter estimation, radar parameter definition, performance assessment, analysis of the mission
Fundings 73037 €
Manager Lorenzo Bruzzone